Echo belongs to RegretfulDragon; Wavelength belongs to Arcane-Angel; Nightflash, Beatbox, and Freefall belong to Yodana; the Jabberwocky poem belongs to Lewis Carol; This story's Alice is mine.
"Wavelength, are you sure this is the right planet..?" Echo looked at her team's commanding officer as their ship went through space. The small group of Elite Guard soldiers were on a scouting mission to find a so called "super-weapon" that was eliminating a large number of the Decepticon forces very quickly. Beatbox sniggered as Wavelength glanced at the yellow and black femme.
"Yes, I'm sure. These are the coordinates my mother gave me." He answered and his older half brothers, Freefall and Nightflash, nodded. Blurr had spoken about the planet once or twice, saying that it was a haven for many Neutrals in the war. Echo sighed and turned back to her screen. After a few hours they landed on a large plateau, the ground checked like a chessboard.
"Hey, what's that noise?" Beatbox glanced over his shoulder and then the group heard a loud scream.
"Decepticons!" Wavelength shouted and the group ran in the direction of the sound. Of course, they couldn't be more wrong about its cause…
"Alice, if Stayne finds out we're skipping our lessons for a quickie…" Mally said before her spiked lover ran her glossa over the soft fur on the round ears, causing the dormouse to shriek again.
"Stayne won't find out, love… He's too busy playing "teatime" with Tarrant." Alice breathed as her clawed digits played with Mally's tail. "Now… Why don't we get started on…"
"HOLD IT RIGHT THERE, 'CON!" Alice snarled as she was pulled away from her lover, who quickly pulled out her sword. The two femmes pulled a move they knew from their training and were back-to-back in a matter of seconds. Alice glared at the green and yellow mech who had called her a " 'Con".
"Who are you calling a 'Con?" She snarled and her hands flashed with purple lightning. "I'm a Neutral, and I happened to work for the Queens! You idiots interrupted a bit of "private time" between me and Mally!"
Beatbox blinked and Wavelength signaled a "stand down" for the rest of the team. After a bit of an explanation, Alice and Mally lead the Autobots to the White Queen's palace. "You have to admit, to a third party it looked like an attack…" Echo whispered to Mally, who nodded and rolled her eyes in Alice's direction. Alice wiggled her tail suggestively at them, even though she hadn't really heard what they were saying. "Is she…?"
"Jabberwockies have really good hearing. She's just being silly." Mally smiled and pinched the wiggling appendage, causing Alice to yelp and jump. "And her tail is sensitive enough I can get a slight revenge…"
"Oh, just wait till we get home, love. If we aren't doing extra patrols for running off…" Alice said, shaking her helm as the group walked out of the forest and the White Queen's palace came into view. "Stayne's going to have us working night shifts for a month once he finds out we were off and playing again…"
"What a wonderful idea, Alice. The two of you can start tonight." The Knave said as he rode over, a smirk on his faceplates. Alice and Mally groaned and let Stayne lead the group into the palace courtyard. After the general meeting, Echo wandered off, knowing that Wavelength wanted to meet with the Queens on his own. Walking down the hall, she heard someone reciting something; a poem, maybe… Running towards it, she heard another voice.
"Again."
"But mom…" That was Alice. "I've read it five times already."
"Read it again. You know I can't even pronounce half of it anymore…"
"All right… `Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought -
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.
`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe."
Alice looked up from the book, smiling at her mother. Lockdown was glad to know that his daughter was still keeping up with at least some of her lessons, mostly the ones involving Absolem. The sound of clapping distracted both of them, and they glanced to the door quickly.
"Oh, I'm sorry." Echo's faceplates were bright red. "It's just, I heard you reading and…"
"And you wanted to find out what was going on. It's okay darlin', Alice reads the poem on special occasions. Name's Lockdown." Alice watched the exchange carefully. Her mother had mentioned a few mechs on Earth who wouldn't miss him; one of them was Prowl, and Echo looked somewhat like the holo-captures she had seen of the cycle-former.
"I'm Echo…" Echo had heard stories from her parents about Lockdown, a ruthless bounty hunter, and yet… Alice had called him her "mom", meaning that he was a carrier mech. There was also a chance that her parents had only known one side of the mech. "My parents knew you."
"You're Prowl and Bumble Bee's kid. I…" Lockdown trailed off and shook his head. "Tell you what, stop by sometime and let me know how they've been. I've gotta finish up here." Alice handed him the poetry book and he nodded to Echo before walking off, the limp in his left leg extremely noticeable to Echo.
"What… what happened?" Alice glanced at her and sighed.
"When I was still a youngling, we crashed on the Chessboard Plateau. Mom lost parts of his memory, and his left leg didn't quite survive the armor reformat… Some of the memories he lost were those of people he knew on Earth. Your parents included." Alice leaned against the wall and sighed. "He… he still remembers what my dad did to him." Oil tears ran down her cheeks as she gave a ragged sigh. Echo didn't press any further, but put her arm around the silently sobbing femme. There were old wounds that had come with the two from Earth, and those wounds must have felt like they were being ripped open by the fact that Echo and her friends had come here… "It's not your fault Echo… I just hate what my father did to him…" Alice's sobs were a bit louder now, her face buried in Echo's shoulder as they stood outside the library.
"… Alice, I know it isn't my place to ask, but…" Echo wondered how to word the question. "Who is your father?"
Alice removed her visor and wiped the tears from her blind optics and sighed. "Megatron. That bastard son of a glitch Megatron."